‘Thy Rod And Staff They Comfort Me’

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” (Ps. 23:4)

On Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr spent much of his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee either running down the clock, or pretending not to understand simple English words like ’suggest’.

Towards the end of this session, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asked him if Robert Mueller had obtained “Donald Trump’s tax returns. “Ask Bob Mueller’ when he comes here” was the passive-aggressive response.

This was not a well-thought out parry. Amy Klobuchar promptly took Barr at his word and has now written to Robert Mueller asking him to turn over the tax returns if he has them. As a number of commentators point out, AG Barr effectively gave explicit permission to Senators to ask such a question, and also gave his own employee Robert Mueller permission to answer it by this comment.

Much worse may follow. A month ago Rep. Charlie Crist asked Wiliam Barr if he knew anything about a media report that Mueller’s team believed Barr’s summary was misleading, and Barr said no. On Wednesday Barr tried to argue that this was a truthful answer because Crist had asked about ‘Mueller’s Team’ not Mueller himself. Unfortunately Barr then subsequently went on to state that his belief that Mueller’s recent letter which reproaches Barr for misrepresenting the conclusions of the SCO report was actually written by a member of Mueller’s *staff*.

Having already lost his ‘Rod’ (Rosenstein resigned as DAG three days ago), William Barr now appears to have tripped over his ’staff’ as well. Small wonder he didn’t appear before the House Committee yesterday.